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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27537697">The devil in my mind, why can’t he go home?</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/'>Anonymous</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Magnus Archives (Podcast)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Self-Hatred, Self-Worth Issues, Suicidal Thoughts, The Magnus Archives Season 1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 16:27:24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,171</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27537697</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s not that Jon wants to die.  It’s just that he can’t stop thinking about it.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>55</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Anonymous</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The devil in my mind, why can’t he go home?</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Just ~2,000 words of me projecting pretty hard on Jon.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Jon is sitting at his desk in the Head Archivist’s office, trying to work on a statement, and the voice in his head is asking once again “Do you want to die?”<br/>
The voice isn’t new.  He’s had a negative inner voice since he was young, whispering things like “You’re a terrible person,” “This is all your fault,” and “Everyone hates you.”  He’s read that sometimes people hear negative self-talk in the voice of someone who’d criticized them before, repeating the same statements in the same voice, but that’s never been his experience.  The voice in his head doesn’t sound like his grandmother or his childhood bullies, or even Georgie.  It sounds like his own voice, the slightly exaggerated formal one he uses for recording statements.  Maybe that’s what makes it feel so natural, so hard to ignore.<br/>
Even the question isn’t new, really.  He’d first heard it back in Uni when he’d had a breakdown during Finals week his first term, overwhelmed with taking the maximum number of credit hours.  It had been raining.  He’d tripped on the wet pavement somewhere between the library and his dorm, then just lay there on the ground, sobbing “I can’t, I can’t, I can’t,” while tears streamed down his face mixing with the rain.  Then his inner voice had startled him by asking sharply, “Do you want to die?”  After a moment, Jon had whispered, “No,” stood up, tried to brush the mud off his clothes, and finished the walk to his dorm.  At the time, it had seemed almost like a harsh encouragement, tough-love, the message clear: ‘if you don’t want to die, then you have to get up and deal with life.’<br/>
He’d heard it again intermittently after that: after his grandmother’s death, while pulling all-nighters finishing his Master’s thesis, after his break-up with Georgie, and during the series of unsuccessful job applications and interviews he’d had before finally landing a job at The Magnus Institute, sounding each time less like tough-love and more like a proposition or a threat.  The negative self-talk had died down a bit during his tenure in Research, but it had never gone away.  It’s been worse since his transfer to the Archives and promotion to Head Archivist, though, his natural insecurity amplified by the complete lack of organization or guidance, the change in his dynamic with Tim and Sasha, the addition of a third unrequested—and seemingly incompetent—assistant, the nagging feeling of being watched, his increasing fear that—while most of the statements the institute has collected are fake, or have a mundane explanation—there are still a large number of real statements that show there is far more out there than just Leitner books, and his growing sense that he isn’t qualified or suited for this job—to be an archivist or to manage three assistants.  Now he hears the voice almost constantly, in the back of his mind, chattering away that Jon is a failure, that he’ll only disappoint everyone, that he’s a bad manager and he’s making Tim and Sasha hate him, that he’s just as incompetent as he complains Martin is.  Then, in the middle of a long harangue that he’s doing his best to tune out, the voice will pause and ask, “Do you want to die?”<br/>
It feels wrong to call it suicidal ideation.  It’s not like he has a plan or materials or even intention, really.  He hasn’t felt the urge to write a note, or start giving away all his worldly possessions, or even make a will.  Besides, people say it all the time, don’t they, at least online: “I could just die” or “Guess I’ll just die” or something along those lines?  It doesn’t mean anything, really.<br/>
Jon doesn’t self-harm, even; well, he picks at scabs and lose skin, pops pimples, chews his lips, and tears off hangnails.  There’s a scab on the side of his neck, almost hidden by his hair and shirt collar, that’s been there for over a month because he keeps scratching at it absently while he works.  The pads of his thumbs are so chapped and raw from picking at the grooves that half the time his phone doesn’t recognize his fingerprint.  Still, lots of people do those things and it doesn’t mean they’re suicidal.  This whole thought thing is the same way.  It’s not as though he has a problem and needs help.  It’s not even a statement in his mind, just a question, that same question, in varying tones—sometimes vicious, sometimes mocking, sometimes flat and matter-of-fact, sometimes almost tender—but always the same words: “Do you want to die?”  So really, it’s just a bit annoying, and he wishes it would stop so he could focus better on his work.<br/>
He always says “No,” of course, when the voice asks, his answer as immediate and unvarying as the question, but that doesn’t stop the voice in his head from asking again, and again, and again.  It happens at random times: when he’s eating his cup yogurt in the break room during the five minutes he allows himself for a lunch break, trying not to focus on how much he hates the texture; when he’s staying late working on a statement and glances up at the clock to realize he’s missed the last train; when he hears Tim, Sasha, and Martin making plans to go out without him; when he checks his email or his phone to see a new message from Elias; when he opens yet another box of mislabeled statement files with incomplete documentation; when a statement refuses to record digitally and he has to dig out the tape recorder to try again.  It crops up at all sorts of mundane and irrelevant moments, with no clear trigger or pattern.  Sometimes it happens every few hours; sometimes he’s lucky enough to go a couple of days or even a week without hearing the question.  Sometimes, like today, it seems like it comes again every five minutes, making him increasingly frustrated at the interruption while he’s trying to sort through the latest box of disorganized statements he’s dug out of the archives.<br/>
When he’s gone two weeks of hearing the question in his mind frequently and repeatedly every day, he finally gives in enough to call a helpline and rants to the patient volunteer about his disastrous promotion, his unhelpful boss and less-than-competent employees, his creepy workplace, the complete lack of organization or direction, and the confusing job he’s not at all sure he’s qualified for.  He doesn’t mention the voice in his head, because it feels silly, and it’s embarrassing enough to admit as much as he already has to a stranger on the other end of a phone line.  The volunteer listens sympathetically and gives him some advice about focusing on the things he can control and trying to add more structure to his life where he can.<br/>
So Jon tries.  He starts coming into work earlier and leaving later.  He can’t control what his predecessor had already done to the archives, he can’t control how much his own archival assistants are willing or able to help him, he can’t control what ridiculous or terrifying stories people put down for him to document, but he can control his own actions and make sure his own work at least is perfect in every detail.  Sometimes he stays overnight in the archives.  He knows he’s not getting enough sleep, but when he does sleep his dreams are just long muddled nightmares about the statements, and he decides if he has to think about the statements anyway he might as well be doing something semi-productive.  Head Archivist is a salary position anyway, not hourly, so there’s no reason for Elias to complain about how many extra hours he’s working.  He starts coming into work on Saturdays, because as stressful as his job is, work seems to be the only thing giving his life structure and he does need structure, the helpline volunteer agreed he needs structure.  On Sundays, he lies on the couch in his flat, exhausted but not sleeping, staring blankly up at the ceiling or gazing blearily around his flat and wondering how it always manages to get so messy when he’s barely ever in it.  The voice in his head does not stop bothering him, but Jon does his best to ignore it.  He does not call the helpline again.  What would he do if he called anyway, just complain again about the same problems?  Lots of people hate their jobs, he just needs to get over it.<br/>
He complains to the tape-recorder instead, feeling as though he has to complain to something, even if he can’t bring himself to burden another human being with his problems.  It would be a problem if anyone ever listened to the tapes, but he knows they don’t, that if anyone outside archives and research really cared about the statements then the archives would never have been allowed to fall into such a state of chaos to begin with.  He feels like Sisyphus, struggling over and over to push his boulder up to the top of the hill, knowing all the time that even if he succeeds it won’t make any difference.  What does it matter if the boulder is at the top of the hill or the bottom, when it doesn’t serve a purpose in either location?<br/>
He could die, he thinks, or disappear like Gertrude did, and most likely no one would care or maybe even notice, outside his three assistants.  If anything, they might be relieved; Jon knows he isn’t the easiest person to work with, or under.  Elias would just hire someone new.  He doesn’t need Jon specifically, no matter what nonsense he spouted about having high expectations for Jon when he offered him the promotion.  Maybe Elias would just promote Tim, or Sasha, or even Martin, giving them the same hollow speech about important work and high expectations.  Still, even if his life is meaningless, he doesn’t want to die.  If anything, every new statement he records on the tape recorder (the ‘real’ statements, he’s taken to calling them in his head, even though he’d never admit it aloud) only adds to his determination to live, to get to the bottom of whatever this is and warn the others.  So, no thank you, he doesn’t want to die.  He just wishes the voice in his head would shut up about it.<br/>
Today, the voice is particularly insistent.  It’s barely past noon, but he’s already heard the question about fifteen times and even recording one of the ‘real’ statements wasn’t enough to distract him from it.  If anything, the voice now seems to be taking advantage of his usual after-statement unease and shakiness to bother him even more, the question coming again and again and again in varying tones, “Do you want to die?  Do you want to die?  Do you want to die?”<br/>
“No!” Jon snaps, at the end of his rope.  “I said ‘no,’ and it’s still ‘no,’ and it’ll be ‘no’ no matter how many times you ask.  So just shut up and leave me alone!”<br/>
“Ooh-kay then,” Martin says slowly, his soft voice from the open doorway to Jon’s office startling Jon. “No tea, got it.  I’ll, ah, I’ll just, just take this away then, yeah.”  He shuffles back out through the doorway, gently closing the door behind him with the hand not holding a mug, and is gone almost before Jon has finished processing his presence.<br/>
So.  Martin was there.  He had responded to what Jon said.  Which means Jon had said it aloud, possibly quite loudly because he’s always been bad at modulating his volume, instead of just in his head like he’d intended.  Martin had even sounded sad and a bit offended, which meant he’d probably thought Jon’s words were directed at him, which wasn’t fair, because Jon hadn’t even realized Martin was there when he’d said it.  Out loud.  Loudly.  Damn.<br/>
Jon’s already halfway to his feet, mouth open to call Martin back and apologize, when he thinks about what he would actually say.  ‘Sorry Martin, I was so caught up in self-hatred I didn’t notice you were there’?  ‘Sorry, I wasn’t talking to you, that was aimed at the voice in my head asking if I want to kill myself’?  There’s no possible reaction to that—disbelief, disgust, fear, pity—that would make the situation any better.  Jon shakes his head, sinking back into his chair.  “Damn it,” he mutters.<br/>
Well, it’s not as if this would be the first time he’s gotten snippy with Martin.  Better to have his subordinates think he’s an irritable jerk than that he’s crazy.  Which he isn’t, obviously.<br/>
“This is why everyone hates you,” the voice in his head supplies helpfully as Jon pulls the next statement from the folder.  “Do you want to die?”<br/>
“No.” Jon sighs, presses the ‘record’ button on the tape recorder, and begins to read.</p>
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